Rediscovery of one of Appalachia's most important and pioneering literary voices and social justice activists This is the first book to celebrate the life and writing of one of the most charismatic Southern leaders of the middle twentieth century, Don West (1906-1992). West was a poet, a pioneer advocate for civil rights, a preacher, a historian, a labor organizer, a folk-music revivalist, an essayist, and an organic farmer. He is perhaps best known as an educator, primarily as cofounder of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and founder of the Appalachian South Folklife Center in West...

This groundbreaking and extraordinary memoir chronicles the astonishing history of one of the most famous yet unknown regions in the world. Based on his one-year sojourn among the Raramuri/Tarahumara, award-winning journalist Biggers uncovers the remarkable treasures of the Sierra Madre.

In old England, if a king didn't like you, he would cut off your head. Now, if they don't like you, they'll cut off your project As the Johnson Administration initiated its war on poverty in the 1960s, the Mingo County Economic Opportunity Commission project was established in southern West Virginia. Huey Perry, a young, local history teacher was named the director of this program and soon he began to promote self-sufficiency among low-income and vulnerable populations. As the poor of Mingo County worked together to improve conditions, the local political infrastructure felt threatened by a...

State Out of the Union is award-winning journalist and historian Jeff Biggers' riveting account of Arizona, the famed frontier state whose conflict over immigration and state's rights has become a national bellwether. Biggers shows how Arizona's long history of labor and civil rights battles, its contentious entry into the union, as well as cyclical upheavals over immigration rights, place the state front and center in a greater American story playing out across the United States. From President Eisenhower's Operation Wetback to the legacy of Arizona native son Cesar Chavez to the...

In old England, if a king didn't like you, he would cut off your head. Now, if they don't like you, they'll cut off your project As the Johnson Administration initiated its war on poverty in the 1960s, the Mingo County Economic Opportunity Commission project was established in southern West Virginia. Huey Perry, a young, local history teacher was named the director of this program and soon he began to promote self-sufficiency among low-income and vulnerable populations. As the poor of Mingo County worked together to improve conditions, the local political infrastructure felt threatened by a...

Set in the ruins of his family's strip-mined homestead in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, award-winning journalist and historian Jeff Biggers delivers a deeply personal portrait of the overlooked human and environmental costs of our nation's dirty energy policy. Beginning with the policies of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, chronicling the removal of Native Americans and the hidden story of legally sanctioned black slavery in the land of Lincoln, Reckoning at Eagle Creek vividly describes the mining wars for union recognition and workplace safety, and the...